(source)

The complexity of the universe is often said to be governed by math. Whether or not that’s “true” in the grand scheme of things, I have no clue – physics and I have never gotten along. What I do know is that numbers themselves are not as absolute as any math teacher you’ve ever had would like you to believe. The necessity of numbers in our current society is irrefutable; but this is because humanity has built its existence out of numerical codes and data collection.

The human brain can only perceive groups of up to 4 objects before you have to consciously count the number of things in front of you. This makes sense biologically, as being able to keep track of small numbers of objects probably helps to keep family groups together in large crowds or in the case of hunting animals, to keep track of prey. The astronomical numbers that humans deal with on a day to day basis, though, cannot be processed by our brains. We cannot comprehend the number of people we share the planet with, or how many stars are a part of our galaxy, or how many bacteria have colonized our intestines. We cannot really ever understand how many dollars are won in the lottery, or how many grains of sand are on a beach. How can we be so certain that there is a finite number of items if we cannot fathom its value?

Quantity is something that humans pride themselves in. Lives and industry alike are governed by statistics and amounts that to those dealing with them are abstract and uncertain. Even money, which seems so concrete to so many people, is often exchanged not in paper and coins but the increase or decrease of numbers on a screen. The concept of infinity exists because humans need to be able to control the expansion of their own universe; if someone needs a number that’s larger than another one, they can just add another zero and its a perfectly valid number. However its impossible to quantify infinity, because nothing can really go on forever. Or can it? It is impossible to prove either way; it’s the deconstruction that counts.

A lot of things that happen to humans “hurt.” Pain is widely accepted as a part of everyday existence, though at varying degrees and taking on many different forms. To be in pain is a statement that has very little substance, yet could resonate with a vast majority of the population. Pain is one of humanity’s favorite things to ignore, and is often associated with weakness or inferiority. For that reason and others people avoid talking of pain as something that happens in general, and only bring it up when it strikes at a moment they aren’t expecting.

If you try to define pain, though, it would be very difficult for you to communicate what you were feeling. You could say something hurts, but what does hurting feel like? The truth of the matter is that this is impossible to generalize, as each instance of pain is entirely subjective, and also a unique experience every time it occurs. No two people feel pain the same way; there are thresholds of pain that humans can tolerate, but even these vary between people. Humans can become immune to the feeling of pain, if they experience it for a prolonged period of time. It’s not that the pain disappears, it’s simply that they feel it all the time, and therefore it cannot be considered pain in the way an anomalous headache or stubbing your toe can. Each instance of pain is also unique to itself. If you try to remember a painful experience, because you cannot (or at least wouldn’t want to) inflict the same physical or emotional injury on yourself again, you simply remember that you were in pain, not what the pain actually felt like. You can associate different sensations to the feeling of an injury, but the response to it as a memory and as the incident will be very different.

Pain cannot be re-felt, so to speak. So it turns out that the old saying “pain is temporary” has some merit in saying not that any pain you experience will quickly dissipate, but rather that you cannot feel pain forever. It can be dulled by time and new experiences, or you may feel a worse kind of pain that will replace that of the past. It’s also possible that you can just forget that you’re in pain; the brain can ignore pain in order to cope with other life tasks that may be disrupted by a response to pain.

There is also emotional pain versus physical pain. While chopping off a body part may cause pain, it is not necessarily the same as the pain you experience after a bad break up or the death of a loved one. Is one a more “real” pain than the other? Some will say yes, that physical pain hurts more, because it is more tangible. However some research suggests that emotional distress is actually worse than physical pain (read article). This may be because of the human mind’s tendency to exaggerate things that are being felt to amplify them to a person; it may also have to do with biology. Humans being social animals, if they experience pain linked with emotions, they need an incentive to avoid doing the action that caused it; without a broken bone poking their nerves, they wouldn’t have this unless the brain manufactured its own mechanisms to account for prevention of emotional pain and social isolation because of it.

All that being said, then, there is no way to say with any validity that one type of pain hurts more than another, or that one individual is in more pain because they were physically injured rather than emotionally damaged. Pain itself may not be tangible, but those who experience similar occurrences of pain can empathize over their own suffering. Pain itself does not exist in a way that humans can conceive it outside of the instant they feel it. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but that isn’t the only thing that can hurt you.

(Picture: http://www.savagelightstudios.com/warpedlens/?p=89)

Everyone seems to have survived their first semester, and after a few weeks, things are starting to get back to normal. As normal as they ever will be, anyways. This week I decided it’d be interesting to deconstruct a topic that’s been relevant to all of us recently: holidays.

Holidays are strange things. They are days in the year where everyone agrees to stop performing their everyday routines, and instead spends hundreds of dollars and hours of time preparing food, decorating with items that are only relevant for a few days, and putting up with a bunch of people they’d rather avoid. This is something that is unique to humans, and has no real justification anywhere outside the societal norms of humanity. You wouldn’t see dogs celebrating birthdays unless their humans put on their party hat; cows don’t come together to mourn the passing of what will soon become your hamburger.

The most rational explanation for why holidays still exist – and why there are so many of them – ties back in to the idea that humans have to micromanage their entire universe. People can’t work straight through the year without ever taking a break; it would tire them out to the point that our system of jobs and schools and governments and such would never be able to function. So to alleviate this stress, we built in our own backup: holidays. They’re randomly spread across the calendar to break up the monotony of human life, and contribute to our ability to function. There is no pattern to their occurrence, and each holiday has its own rules about when it will occur and what will happen at the time of its celebration.

The most impressive aspect of the holiday is by far the atmosphere created by each of them. Christmas is the most prominent because it counteracts the depressive nature of winter. However holidays are not really what they appear to be in many cases. People are confronted with the option to either participate or be judged by their friends, family, and community. Different groups of people have different sets of holidays, whether religious, national, industrial, or otherwise. Each member of each group is expected to partake in the festivities based on tradition, and to veer off the path is to commit social suicide. This pack mentality is what causes the association of happiness with twinkling lights, colorful eggs, or fireworks, among many other holiday symbols. The traditions are performed almost like rituals, to keep the balance of the universe in check. There is often more fighting or bickering on holidays than any other times of the year, because they are no longer serving their purpose as a break. They are now marketing nightmares, iPhone festivals, and bunches of angry, lonely people forced to don a smile, whether surrounded by relatives or alone on the street.

While this may seem a very negative take on holidays, they do have their upsides. I’m sure you know what those are, though, so I see no need to point them out. Holidays can be a time of actual enjoyment, where people are filled with love and bonded by their respective traditions. However you may be hard-pressed to think of a time when something didn’t go wrong on a holiday; even little things can sometimes ruin the most joyous of occasions. Whether my perceptions are an exception to the rule or not, if you try to explain why holidays exist (outside of religion or other such practices) they don’t make much sense. No matter how you see them or what you celebrate, happy holidays.

(Picture source: http://www.blueacorn.com/blog/analytics-important-holidays/)